Good morning! Hello there. How are you? All well? What’s today? Thursday? Oh that’s exciting. Thursday is the day North Carolina updates its Covid stats including wastewater and statewide percent positive rate. Please go down please go down.
(Also, three years into this and I still can’t decide if it’s covid, Covid, or COVID.)
Got a 2 on my Wordle today that made me feel like a genius so I’m gonna be smug all day now.
I have terrible news. Yesterday after work and a lovely outdoor dinner with my family, I picked up the crowbar from the main house and I brought it back here to the guest house and I pried off the bad plywood from the top of the workbench surface in an effort to get to the beautiful looking hardwood underneath. Well, bad luck for me, it was only a beautiful looking hardwood frame boxing in a wet, mildewing piece of particle board. So the top is toast. Now I gotta Sawzall the behemoth into pieces and take it to the dump. Can’t mulch or compost any of this wood because it’s all fake and mostly toxic glues. And now I need a new top. I would make one but I don’t have clamps that big, I got too much to make and do on this house, I need a workbench stat, and workbench surfaces are relatively cheap. But I am sad. Was really hoping for a giant slab of reclaimed hardwood. Alas. At least the frame of the table is still solid and vintage and metal. It’ll still be a pretty great workbench. But boy, that was a lot of sanding for nothing.
Question: Coffee. I don’t drink coffee. I am trying to get this guest house equipped for coffee drinkers. I have a drip coffee maker over here and a French press. I probably need filters for these things huh? Also… how do you buy coffee? How long does a sealed bag keep? Should I be just keeping this stuff around, changing it out every few months, or is it more like a “buy a bag right before a guest arrives” kind of thing? I don’t have a grinder here. Is that acceptable? Can I buy some ground coffee? What is a reasonable decent type to have in a guest house for guests that can be obtained at major retail outlets like grocery stores and Starbucks? Or if you are local, is there some good local coffee shop I can buy ground coffee from?
Thank you for your time and attention in this matter, I am completely clueless.
Yesterday was a lot of calls, and while I was doing the calls I worked on the living area of this house. Got all the boxes out of here that Emma had produced while building the beautiful new shelves. Did some shelf-scaping. Assembled the floor lamp. Vacuumed. Did laundry and dishes. Put the new plates away. Cleaned up the kitchen. It is coming along. There is a foul smell that comes from underneath the sink and I don’t even know WHAT it is. Smells like mildew maybe but there’s no visible sign and everything seems dry. I had sprayed it down with some odor killer previously and that worked for a while but the smell is back. I don’t really know what to do. It’s all unfinished(ish) wood down there. Sanding it down seems extreme. Oh. Google tells me vinegar and water. Okay then. I will get some vinegar.
I watched this revelatory Matt Risenger video last night about attics that confirmed all of my confusion and suspicions about attics and why we make them the way we do and why that is bad and I feel much better about my still-forming plans about the attic finishing. It is going to be part of “the envelope” and cooled. It is, in fact, better for the HVAC unit to be inside the envelope, at least here in the south, because it is more efficient and less prone to condensation and mold. So I am happy about that. Plans are forming. Closed cell spray foam on the ceiling and walls to the exterior, Rockwool Safe ‘N Sound between the ceiling of the main floor and the subfloor, then float the second floor on a layer of foam rubber, then a second floor, also insulated, then sound panels, then the flooring. Should be good. Will be expensive. Will take forever.
I also found out about “home performance contractors” who come and look at your house and talk about how well your HVAC is installed and consult on attic refinishes and I am so excited to get that person in. That is going to rule.
Walk and dinner with the family was lovely yesterday. I missed them. Jane didn’t want to eat outside with Emma and I, so we left the door open and ate on the porch while she ate at the table, but within eyesight. It was very cute. So was her outfit yesterday. Very colorful.
OK that’s it I think today. I am a bit braindead. W Hotel Lobby in a Better, Alternate Universe playlist for you. All new stuff except for the first and the last song. Man I sure do like all this new music. So many people making awesome new music. I read this music industry newsletter and the guy’s thesis is there’s too much music, most people only want the hits, this whole “2 million songs in your pocket” conceit is a fallacy and he continually, repeatedly disparages people like me as extreme nerds or fanboys or something but I think he misses the point. Saying there’s too much music now is an economic statement. From an artistic perspective, I think there being so much music is wonderful. I think it’s wonderful so many people make so much art. I think it’s wonderful that the tools have become so ubiquitous and accessible. I think it’s wonderful so many people work through their issues with art, share it with the world, and find some small audience, even if it’s only a couple hundred people. None of this makes “being an artist” a livable career, I grant that, and I do profoundly wish more people could stop working and just make art even if it was for themselves, but that is a separate issue. The net volume of art on the planet being high is a good thing, I think.
Until tomorrow!
omg i can't wait to read the coffee responses over on FB. you're gonna end up even more confused than you started. it's gonna be a hoot. but my two cents: you can't cater to coffee snobs, and i say this as a former barista.
that said, as annie notes, you'll need two different grinds for the two makers you have. just keep 'em labeled in the freezer. THE END. (at home, we just have two pour-over contraptions, in which i do a mix of one part pre-ground cafe bustelo to two parts pre-ground medium-roast whatever's-on-sale-at-the-grocery-store because i'm fancy that way. al likes french roast, though, so we have a LOT of tubs of coffee around, haha.)
if ever in the future you wanna upgrade, my parents have a nespresso, and that shit is the bomb.
You don't need a filter for a french press, but you do need a kettle to boil the water. You could just go with French press to make things easier.
You do need a filter for the drip maker, unless it has a reusable stainless steel one, which you might want to look into if you're going that route, rather than disposable paper ones. But I'd just ditch the drip maker for the French Press. It makes better coffee than drip.
I think it's acceptable to not have a coffee grinder for a guest house. You can get ground coffee at the super market or Starbux or if you find a good local roaster place. OR, if you go to a supermarket like Whole Foods (or maybe your big places you go around you?) they'll have a grinder you can use. You literally choose a bag of coffee you want, open it and grind it back into the bag before you pay for it. I just had to teach Bill about this recently.
For the French Press, if you get a choice, you want coarse grind. For the drip, it's a sort of medium grind. If you go to a place that does it for you, they'll ask what kind of coffee maker you're using and do the correct grind. If you buy pre-ground in the supermarket, it will all be a generic medium which will work well enough in anything.
I buy from a local roaster up here that I like, but if I was forced to choose something in the supermarket, I'd go with Starbux Veranda roast or Pike roast. Not sure what else is reliably not regional...
In terms of storage, you can keep coffee in the freezer for some time and it keeps fairly well. And you can use it straight out of the freezer, so it's not really an issue. (I put about a week's worth in a smaller container in my coffee cabinet each week for easy access).
Now, of course, true coffee snobs will have their opinions and tastes, but I think some Starbux ground beans in a french press should be an ok middle ground for most people, despite the scorn many will heap upon the corporate coffee industry. You can make it stronger or weaker to taste, and it's a fairly neutral strongish coffee. There are certainly detractors, but, alas, there are with everything.
You could also get a few different kinds and keep them in the freezer... especially if someone finds you some interesting local stuff.
Then there's milk and sweeteners. I don't know a ton about the latter, but, you know, sugar, stevia... I don't think any people our age purposely eat aspartame or saccharin, but they might. Then there are people who like real milk (and its permutations) vs. fake milk. Personally, I think Oatley oat milk is the bomb for coffee (the full fat or barista blends). Califia farms oat milk is also good. Some people like Soy milk, but Oat is definitely the most popular now. Almond milk is generally frowned upon because of the almond industry. And it doesn't mix as reliably with coffee anyway.
You should ask Nick how non-vegan people like their coffee. He knows.
Let me know if you have more questions. I like coffee a lot.